As computer technology has advanced, the role of computers in our daily lives has expanded, as has the need for various peripheral or supporting devices. One typical peripheral device used with computers is a printer, which generates a hard copy of data that is used by the computer. The types and capabilities of printers available has similarly been expanding, resulting in a wide variety of printers with a range of printing capabilities, performance, and price.
One significant expansion in the use of computer technology is the networking of computers together. Networking computers together allows the computers to communicate with one another as well as with other devices, such as printers. Currently, in order for a user of a computer to print to particular printers on a network, software must be installed on the computer that allows it to configure the printer for printing and communicate print requests to the printer. Such software is commonly referred to as a “printer driver”. A different printer driver is typically required for each different type (e.g., make and model) of printer that the user desires to print to. This can create many problems for a user—the user (or an administrator) must spend the time and effort to install the printer driver on the user's computer for each type of printer that the user will print to, the user is not able to move to another computer and print from that computer unless the correct printer drivers have been installed on the other computer, and so on.
It would thus be beneficial to provide a way to improve the user's ability to configure printers in a user-friendly manner. The importance of such an improvement increases as the use and capabilities of networks continues to expand.